Users can control how they interact with Oracle Workflow by specifying user preferences. As a workflow administrator, you also have access to set default user preference values globally for the entire enterprise, using the Workflow Configuration page. An individual user can override a default user preference at any time by modifying his or her preference setting, using the Preferences page in Oracle E-Business Suite.

See: Set Preferences.

   To Set Global Preferences:

1. Use a Web browser to navigate to the Workflow Configuration page, using a responsibility and navigation path specified by your system administrator. See: Oracle Workflow Administrator Navigation Paths.

   Note: You must have workflow administrator privileges to set global workflow preferences in the Workflow Configuration page. If you do not have administrator privileges, you can view global workflow preferences, but you cannot modify them. After installation of Oracle E-Business Suite, workflow administrator privileges are initially assigned to the SYSADMIN user by default. You can change that assignment in this page.

2. In the Workflow System Administrator field, select the role to which you want to assign workflow administrator privileges. Any user associated with this role can set global workflow preferences in this page, view and respond to any user's notifications, define rules to handle notifications automatically in a user's absence, view workflows owned by any user and perform administrative operations in the Status Monitor, run test workflows in the Developer Studio, and maintain Business Event System objects and raise test events in the Event Manager. See: Setting Up an Oracle Workflow Directory Service.

   Note: To find out which role currently has workflow administrator privileges, without accessing the Workflow Configuration page, you can use the following command:

   select text 
   from wf_resources
   where name = 'WF_ADMIN_ROLE';
   

   After installing Oracle Workflow, you should change the Workflow System Administrator preference from the default setting to the role that you want to have administrator privileges. The default setting after installation is SYSADMIN. You must log in as the SYSADMIN user to access the Workflow Configuration page and specify the preferences you want.

   Note: The SYSADMIN role is different than the role associated with the System Administrator responsibility in Oracle E-Business Suite. If you want to assign workflow administrator privileges to this or any other Oracle E-Business Suite responsibility, you must set the Workflow System Administrator preference to the internal name of the workflow role associated with that responsibility.

   You can query the WF_ROLES view to find the role name for a responsibility. For example, to find the role names for various administrator responsibilities in Oracle E-Business Suite, use the following command:

   select name, display_name
   from wf_roles
   where display_name like '%Admin%';
   

   If you set the Workflow System Administrator preference to the role name of a responsibility, then any Oracle E-Business Suite user with that responsibility will have workflow administrator privileges.

   Note: The user through which a notification mailer accesses Oracle Application Framework content must have workflow administrator privileges in order to access the content for every user's notifications. If you change the Workflow System Administrator preference, ensure that the Framework User mailer parameter is set to a user that is a member of the Workflow System Administrator role, or, if you set the Workflow System Administrator preference to a responsibility, ensure that the Framework User mailer parameter is set to a user that has that responsibility. See: Notification Mailer Configuration Wizard.

   Note: For development environments only, if you want all users and roles to have workflow administrator privileges, enter an asterisk (*) in the Workflow System Administrator field. This setting is not recommended in production environments for security reasons.

3. If you are integrating with Oracle Directory Services, specify the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) server information for the LDAP directory to which you will connect. If you already configured these parameters while installing your Web server with Oracle E-Business Suite, Oracle Workflow displays those values here. See: Overview of Single Sign-On Integration, Oracle E-Business Suite Security Guide.

   Note: Oracle Directory Services refers to both Oracle Internet Directory and Oracle Unified Directory. Procedures documented for implementing Oracle Directory Services apply to both these directories.

   • Host - The host on which the LDAP directory resides.

   • Port - The port on the host.

   • Username - The LDAP user account used to connect to the LDAP server. This user name must have write privileges and is required to bind to the LDAP directory. For example:

     cn=orcladmin
     

   • Old Password - Enter your current LDAP password. Oracle Workflow validates this password before letting you change it.

   • New Password - Enter the new LDAP password you want to use. The password must be at least five characters long.

   • Repeat Password - Enter your new LDAP password again in this field to confirm it. You must enter exactly the same value that you entered in the New LDAP Password field.

     Note: LDAP password values are masked as asterisks in the display and are stored in encrypted form.

   • Change Log Base Directory - The LDAP node under which change logs are located. For example:

     cn=changelog
     

   • User Base Directory - The LDAP node under which user records can be found. For example:

     cn=Users,dc=oracle,dc=com 
     

4. Specify details about the local system that identifies this installation of Oracle Workflow in the Business Event System. See: Systems.

   • System Name - The system name for the database where this installation of Oracle Workflow is located. Oracle Workflow automatically creates the system definition for this database in the Event Manager during installation.

   • Status - Select the execution status for the local system.

     • Enabled - Subscriptions are executed on all events. Oracle Workflow sets the system status to Enabled by default.

     • Local Only - Subscriptions are executed only on events raised on the local system.

     • External Only - Subscriptions are executed only on events received by inbound agents on the local system.

     • Disabled - No subscriptions are executed on any events.

   Note: The local system settings are specific to this installation of Oracle Workflow and are not included when Business Event System data is replicated to other systems.

5. Specify default workflow preferences for your users.

   • Notification Style - Specify whether Oracle Workflow should send e-mail notifications to users, and if so, in what format. A user can override this default setting by specifying a different notification style in his or her individual Oracle E-Business Suite preferences.

     • HTML mail with attachments - Send notifications as HTML-formatted e-mail with attached links to the Notification Details page. Users must read their e-mail using an HTML e-mail client.

     • Plain text mail with HTML attachments - Send notifications as plain text e-mail but include the HTML-formatted version of the notifications and links to the Notification Details page as attachments.

     • Plain text mail - Send notifications as plain text e-mail.

     • Plain text summary mail - Send a summary of all notifications as plain text e-mail. Users must use the Worklist Web pages to view and take action on individual notifications.

     • Do not send me mail - Do not send the notifications as e-mail. Users must use the Worklist Web pages to view and take action on their notifications.

     • HTML mail - Send notifications as HTML-formatted e-mail only, without any standard attachments. If custom attachments have been defined for individual notifications in a process, however, those attachments will still be included. Users must read their e-mail using an HTML e-mail client.

     • HTML summary mail - Send a summary of all notifications as HTML-formatted e-mail, with a link to the Worklist page as well as links to each notification in the Notification Details page. Users must use the Worklist Web pages to view and take action on individual notifications.

     Note: To send e-mail notifications, you must configure and run a notification mailer. Additionally, users who are to receive e-mail notifications must have an e-mail address defined. You can run a diagnostic test through Oracle Diagnostics Framework to check that all users with a notification preference to receive e-mail have an e-mail address defined. See: Implementing Notification Mailers, Setting Up an Oracle Workflow Directory Service, and Oracle Workflow Diagnostic Tests.

     Users can always access their notifications through the Worklist Web pages, even if their notification preference also includes e-mail notifications.

     Note: Oracle Workflow also uses a notification preference called Disabled, which is set automatically at the user preference level for a user with an invalid e-mail address. Do not set the global notification preference to this value.

   • Browser Signing DLL Location - The location of the Capicom.dll file that is used for Web page operations with encryption in the Microsoft Internet Explorer browser. This preference is required only if you plan to use certificate-based digital signatures to confirm notification responses, and your users access Oracle E-Business Suite with Microsoft Internet Explorer.

     By default, this preference is set to a URL at which the Capicom.dll file can be downloaded from Microsoft's Web site. In most cases, you do not need to change this setting. However, you can update this preference if the location of the Capicom.dll file changes, or if you choose to store a copy of the file on your local network and point to that location instead.

     For more information about setting up for certificate-based signatures, see: Loading Certificates for Digital Signatures.

6. In the Workflow Status Monitor Diagram Size field, select the display size for the status diagram within the Administrator Monitor and the Self-Service Monitor. The sizes you can select are Small, Medium, or Large. The default size is Small. See: Viewing a Status Diagram (Administrator Monitor) and Viewing a Status Diagram (Self-Service Monitor).

7. Specify whether you want to defer notification response processing for any item types when users respond through the Worklist Web pages. By default, Oracle Workflow processes a notification response entered in the Worklist pages as soon as the response is submitted, and then continues processing the subsequent activities in the workflow until another blocking activity is reached. Only then does the page return control to the user. Alternatively, you can choose to defer the processing of notification responses and subsequent activities, and instead return control to the user immediately. For example, you can defer notification response processing for item types that include costly activities or large numbers of activities following a notification, to avoid forcing users to wait while the Workflow Engine processes those activities.

   In the Defer Notification Response Processing for Item Types field, select None if you do not want to defer response processing for any item types, All if you want to defer response processing for all item types, or Specific if you want to defer response processing only for particular item types. The default value is None.

   If you select Specific, the page displays a list of the workflow item types you specify. Choose Add Item Type to add a row to the list, and then select an item type in the Workflow Type field. Repeat these steps to continue adding item types as needed. To delete an item type from the list, choose the delete icon for that item type.

   If you choose to defer notification response processing for any item types, then when a user responds to a notification from one of those types through the Worklist pages, Oracle Workflow saves and validates the response information, but does not complete the notification activity. Instead, it places the response on the standard WF_NOTIFICATION_IN agent as an event called oracle.apps.wf.notification.wl.response.message.

   Note: The WF_NOTIFICATION_IN agent is also used by the notification mailer to process notification responses that users submit through e-mail.

   Oracle Workflow provides a seeded agent listener named Workflow Inbound Notifications Agent Listener that runs on the WF_NOTIFICATION_IN agent to continue notification processing for the response messages placed on that agent. If you choose deferred notification response processing, ensure that the Workflow Inbound Notifications Agent Listener is running. See: Scheduling Listeners for Local Inbound Agents.

   When an oracle.apps.wf.notification.wl.response.message event message is dequeued from WF_NOTIFICATION_IN, Oracle Workflow executes a seeded subscription that calls the appropriate notification response function to complete the notification activity and allow the workflow process to continue from that point.

   If an error occurs during the deferred notification response processing, then the event message is placed on the standard WF_ERROR agent. Oracle Workflow provides a seeded agent listener named Workflow Error Agent Listener that runs on the WF_ERROR agent to perform error handling. If you choose deferred notification response processing, ensure that the Workflow Error Agent Listener is running. See: Scheduling Listeners for Local Inbound Agents.

   When an oracle.apps.wf.notification.wl.response.message event message is dequeued from WF_ERROR, Oracle Workflow uses a seeded error subscription to execute the Error Process for Notification Response Processing in the System: Error item type, which sends an error notification to the workflow administrator specified here in the Workflow Configuration page. The workflow administrator can then retry the notification response processing. See: Error Process for Notification Response Processing.